Jeremy Corbyn: I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of tributes to Jo Cox.
Last Thursday, Jo Cox was doing what all of us here do: representing and serving the people who elected her. We have lost one of our own, and our society as a whole has lost one of our very best. She had spent her life serving and campaigning for other people, whether as a worker for Oxfam or for the anti-slavery charity, the Freedom Fund, as a political activist and as a feminist.
The horrific act that took Jo from us was an attack on democracy, and our whole country has been shocked and saddened by it, but in the days since the country has also learned something of the extraordinary humanity and compassion that drove her political activism and beliefs. Jo Cox did not just believe in loving her neighbour; she believed in loving her neighbour’s neighbour. She saw a world of neighbours and she believed that every life counted equally.
In a very moving tribute, Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International, said:
“Her campaigning on refugees, Syria and the rights of women and girls made her stand out as an MP who always put the lives of the most vulnerable at the heart of her work.”
Her former colleague at the Freedom Fund, Nick Grono, said:
“Jo was a powerful champion for the world’s most vulnerable and marginalised.”
She spoke out in support of refugees, for the Palestinian people and against Islamophobia in this country. Her integrity and talent was known by everyone in this House, and by the community of Batley and Spen, which she proudly represented here for the past year. It was that community in Batley and Spen that brought her up, as well, of course, as her wonderful family, with whom we share their grief today.
Her community and the whole country has been united in grief and united in rejecting the well of hatred that killed her in what increasingly appears to have been an act of extreme political violence. We are filled with sorrow for her husband, Brendan, and young children. They will never see her again, but they can be so proud of everything she was, all she achieved and all she stood for, as we are, as are her parents, as is her sister and as are her whole wider family.
Jo would have been 42 this Wednesday. She had much more to give, and much more that she would have achieved.
I want to thank the heroes who tried to intervene. Bernard Kenny, a 77-year-old former miner, saw the need and ran to Jo’s aid. He was stabbed and taken to hospital. I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing Mr Kenny a speedy and full recovery—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Many shopkeepers and bystanders also tried to help, and administered first aid to Jo and Bernard, and there were also the police officers who made the arrest and the national health service paramedics who were on the scene so quickly.
In her maiden speech last year, Jo said:
“Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration …While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 674-75.]
We need a kinder and gentler politics. This is not a factional party political point. We all have a responsibility in this House and beyond not to whip up hatred or sow division.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you, Prime Minister, and Rose Hudson-Wilkin, our wonderful chaplain, for accompanying me to the vigil for Jo last Friday at the Priestley statue in the centre of the lovely town of Birstall. We—all of us—were moved by the unity and warmth of the crowd brought together in grief and solidarity.
I have been very moved by the public outpourings since her death—the hundreds of letters and emails we have all received in solidarity with Jo’s family in their hour of grief—and by the outpouring of charitable donations to causes close to her heart, the White Helmets, HOPE not hate, and the Royal Voluntary Service. Last night, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and I held a vigil outside our town hall, one of hundreds of vigils attended by tens of thousands of people right across our land who are so shocked by what has happened and want to express that shock and grief.
I also want to thank the other parties in this House, which have offered their sympathy and support at this very difficult time. We are united in grief at her loss, and we must be aware that her killing is an attack on our democracy. It is an attack on our whole society. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) wrote recently,
“Jo’s life was a demonstration against despair”.
In Jo’s tragic death, we can come together to change our politics, to tolerate a little more and condemn a little less. Jo’s grieving husband Brendan said:
“Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people.”
Today, we remember Jo’s compassion and her passion to create a better world. In her honour, we recommit ourselves to that task.

David Cameron: We are here today to remember an extraordinary colleague and friend. Jo Cox was a voice of compassion, whose irrepressible spirit and boundless energy lit up the lives of all who knew her and saved the lives of many she never ever met. Today, we grieve her loss and we hold in our hearts and prayers her husband Brendan, her parents and sister, and her two children, who are just three and five years old. We express our anger at the sickening and despicable attack that killed her as she did her job serving her constituents on the streets of Birstall. Let me join the Leader of the Opposition in his moving words praising Bernard Kenny and all those who tried to save her. Above all, in this House we pay tribute to a loving, determined, passionate and progressive politician, who epitomised the best of humanity and who proved so often the power of politics to make our world a better place.
I first met Jo in 2006 in Darfur. She was doing what she was so brilliant at: bravely working in one of the most dangerous parts of the world, fighting for the lives of refugees. Her decision to welcome me, then a Conservative Leader of the Opposition, had not been entirely welcomed by all her colleagues and friends, but it was typical of her determination to reach across party lines on issues that she felt were so much more important than party politics. Jo was a humanitarian to her core—a passionate and brilliant campaigner, whose grit and determination to fight for justice saw her, time and time again, driving issues up the agenda and making people listen and, above all, act; drawing attention to conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; helping to expose the despicable practice of rape in war; her work with Sarah Brown on cutting mortality in childbirth; her support for refugees fleeing the war in Syria. Quite simply, there are people on our planet today who are only here and alive because of Jo.
Jo was a committed democrat and a passionate feminist. She spent years encouraging and supporting women around the world to stand for office, long before she did so herself. When she was elected as an MP, just over a year ago, she said to one of her colleagues that she did not just want to be known for flying around the world tackling international issues, but that she had a profound  duty to stand up for the people of Batley and Spen, and she was absolutely as good as her word. As she said in her maiden speech, Jo was proud to be made in Yorkshire and to serve the area in which she had grown up. She belonged there, and in a constituency of truly multi-ethnic, multi-faith communities, she made people feel that they belonged too.
Jo’s politics were inspired by love, and the outpouring and unity of the tributes we have seen in the past few days show the extraordinary reach and impact of her message, for in remembering Jo we show today that what she said in this House is true—and I know it will be quoted many times today:
“we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
This Wednesday, as the Leader of the Opposition said, would have been Jo’s 42nd birthday, and there will be a global celebration of her life and values with simultaneous events in New York and Washington, London, Batley, Brussels, Geneva, Nairobi and Beirut. She should of course have been celebrating her birthday by hosting her traditional summer solstice party. It reminds us that behind the formidable professional was a loving and fun mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend, with a warm welcoming smile and so often laughter in her voice. Jo brought people together; she saw the best in people and she brought out the best in them.
A brave adventurer and a keen climber, Jo was never daunted. When most people hear of a place called the Inaccessible Pinnacle, they leave it well alone. Not Jo. She did not just climb it; she abseiled down it, and did so despite a bad case of morning sickness. It was her irrepressible spirit that helped to give her such determination and focus in her politics, too. A Conservative colleague of mine said this weekend:
“If you lost your way for a moment in the cut and thrust of political life, meeting Jo would remind you why you went into politics in the first place.”
There have been so many moving tributes in the past few days, but if I may I would like to quote someone already mentioned—the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern):
“We mourn your loss, yet know that all you stood for is unbreakable. We promise to stand up, even though we are broken. We promise that we will never be cowed by hate.”
May we and the generations of Members who follow us in this House honour Jo’s memory by proving that the democracy and freedoms that Jo stood for are indeed unbreakable, by continuing to stand up for our constituents, and by uniting against the hatred that killed her, today and forever more.

Stuart Andrew: “What an amazing woman.” “Jo was one of us.” “She was clearly a remarkable person.” These are not my comments, although I clearly concur with them; they are just some of the many comments I heard from constituents and from those I met over the weekend in Batley and Spen.
Conscious of time and wanting to ensure that her friends have the opportunity to speak, I make this short but heartfelt contribution on behalf of my fellow Yorkshire Conservative MPs. I first met Jo just over a year ago. It was not long after the general election and we were both appearing on the region’s “Sunday Politics” show. On arriving at the studio, I was taken to the make-up room, where Jo was already sitting in the chair. Needless to say, I had to spend a lot longer in that chair than she did. As I walked in, Jo looked at me in the reflection in the mirror and greeted me with that wonderful smile that lit her whole face. In that instant—that split second—I knew this was someone I was going to like enormously, and I was not wrong. As we recorded the programme, it was clear that actually we agreed with each other on a number of issues. I am sure that the lack of political argument came as a huge disappointment to the producers. It is a testament to who Jo was that she got her point across effectively and calmly, without the need for talking over people—because when Jo spoke, people listened.
Jo was always passionate about the issues she cared about—never afraid to stand up for those she felt had no voice—but she was also a proud Yorkshirewoman, and our county is rightly proud of her. As I spent time in Birstall and Batley over this weekend, it was clear that her constituents loved her. Almost everyone I spoke to had met her: quite an achievement in just a year. As the floral tributes increased, you could sense the outpouring of love for Jo. On Friday, as some 2,000 people, from all faiths and none, packed into the Al-Hikmah centre in Batley, tribute after tribute spoke of the qualities of one of the most outstanding Members this House had. Many described her as a rising star; personally, I think she was a star, full stop.
The statements from Jo’s husband, her sister and her family—powerful, inclusive, passionate—demonstrate the background that many of her values came from.  In her maiden speech, as we have heard, she talked about how
“we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
In everything she did, she promoted those values. She united communities and campaigned for things that highlighted the unifying qualities she cared so passionately about. In these last few days, I have been amazed at the kindness and love expressed on social media and in emails, letters, cards and conversations. The #thankyourmp hashtag has encouraged so many messages of gratitude and appreciation, even from people who have opposing views. In her tragic death, Jo is managing to achieve what she successfully did so much in her life.
I know I am not alone in saying that I will miss Jo.  I will miss her compassion, her determination, her conviction—but above all I will miss her smile, whether it be as we passed each other in the corridor or from across the Chamber. Jo was a proud Yorkshire lass; a brilliant Yorkshire rose. My only regret about Jo is that I only knew her for a year.

Alison McGovern: Let me begin by saying again Jo’s own words:
“Who can blame desperate parents for wanting to escape the horror that their families are experiencing? Children are being killed on their way to school…one in three children have grown up knowing nothing but fear and war. Those children have been exposed to things no child should ever witness, and I know that I would risk life and limb to get my two precious babies out of that hellhole.” —[Official Report, 25 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 1234.]
When Jo spoke, we all listened. Why? Because the principle that she drew on in that speech and in life is the simple idea that we have more in common than that which divides us. Her words demonstrate that if we choose, we do not always have to see ourselves as different from those far away. We can choose to see what unites us. We all listened because her words spoke to each and every one of us.
To know Jo, even a little bit, was to understand how proud she was of her family and to hear her relish her role as a mum. Many of her friends have spoken of that joy, that warmth and that natural charm. She had a way of talking not just about herself and her own ideas, but always about what we could do together.
Jo took on the toughest of problems and the most forgotten causes, and fought campaigns that we could all feel a part of and that would truly make change happen. Whether it was Darfur or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jo knew how easily our global responsibilities fade from view without conscious activism. As she herself wrote:
“This active internationalist approach is not inevitable. It has been, and is still contested across the political spectrum.”
Jo wrote about a fight not just for one country, one people or one cause, but for a world view that bestowed on each of us rights and on all of us the responsibility to protect. That is especially true in relation to her activism in pursuit of women’s rights. Faced with the great joy and great risk of motherhood, women are uniquely and equally vulnerable. When the world could not find the wherewithal to meet the millennium development goal to cut maternal mortality, Jo took on this huge challenge and made global leaders sit up and listen to women.
Jo did not just believe that women’s voices should be heard; she made it so. She was a feminist whose activism saved women’s lives and whose political skill got women elected to this House. Many in this place will never have seen the quiet, careful work of Jo and her colleagues at Labour Women’s Network to give women the knowledge and networks to take control and win power. She did it not by hectoring or lecturing, but by believing in the goodness of others. As Jo’s friend and mine, Kirsty McNeill, has written:
“Half holding you upright, half shoving you forward. That’s what it meant to have Jo’s arm around your shoulder.”
How we all long for those arms round our shoulder today—for one more hug, and definitely for one more smile—but it cannot be.
The words from Jo’s maiden speech must therefore truly ring out today:
“we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
Cheap populism cannot take hold. Jo’s vision of our country, explained in that speech, is one that we know in our hearts to be true. It is not where you come from  that matters; it is the compassion and love in your heart. You might be ferociously proud of your home town, as Jo was, but you know that compassion does not end at its boundaries.
And here is another thing that does not end: Jo Cox’s life had real meaning. She gave love to us all and that can never be lost. We may feel lost today, but inside us all, the love is still there.